NORFOLK, Va. — A penalty stroke is a rare thing in field hockey, and even rarer against North Carolina.
The goal Princeton’s Amanda Bird scored to break the 2-2 tie and hand UNC its third straight loss in the NCAA title game was the first and only penalty stroke the Tar Heels faced all season.
“You can just react. You can’t do anything about it,” said sophomore goalkeeper Sassi Ammer, who made 13 saves on the weekend despite battling illness. “You can’t make angles shorter or something like that. You just can’t do anything. I saw her going to the right corner, and I was there, but I didn’t expect her to go right through my legs.”
Bird actually mishit the ball, which might have thrown Ammer off. But neither Bird nor her teammates are complaining.
“It was probably not the best rip I’ve ever taken in my life, but it was on cage,” Bird said, laughing. “I’ve been in situations like that before. There’s a lot of pressure, but I knew either way I was extremely confident in my team and that we had the capability to score either way.”
After UNC’s semifinal win against Syracuse on Friday, coach Karen Shelton said that Princeton was an unknown challenge. But there was no way she could have known watching Princeton’s Teresa Benvenuti make a penalty stroke to defeat Maryland 3-2 that she had witnessed the fate her own team would face two days later.
And much like Princeton’s game against the Terrapins, Sunday’s matchup could have been anyone’s game. Both offenses charged up and down the field. UNC took 13 shots. Princeton took 11.
Then, in the 60th minute, the whistle blew for a stroke after defender Samantha Travers and Princeton’s Michelle Cesan got tangled up in UNC’s circle. Cesan was heading toward the goal with the ball.
When Travers tripped Cesan, the referee called a “breakdown” foul, which meant that Travers had broken down a scoring opportunity.
